There is no contradiction between the love of God and his creation of Hell. God's love provides a free escape out of Hell, free to us, costly to Him, it cost His Son His Life. He would be unloving to His own Son, if those who reject this free gift were not sent to Hell. Additionally, God would not be God if He did not punish in Hell those who have rejected Jesus' death for them. The author needs to examine his own soul, in addition to examining a topic he clearly does not understand. "For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord- "Romans 6:23

understand. "For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord- "Romans

I hope that is just a favorite passage because it seems to comply perfectly with the notion of heaven without hell because death should be enough to scare you straight kind of like what Catholics believe. The problem with hell is it is assuming you need more than the end of existence and eternal banishment from God to punish the sinners. That is exactly what your passage is saying

Revelation 21:8 But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

Matthew 25:30 Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

A very insightful article indeeed, I've thoroughly enjoyed reading this!! Even from the infancy of my 'religious teaching', I always had a problem reconciling Hell with the primary attribute of the Almighty, ie Love. Its interesting that in the last book of the bible, Revelations, Death and Hell are destroyed, but then, that would largely go unnoticed for the clergy mut thrive on the fears of the ignorant

"And this death of which I have spoken, which is the spiritual death, shall deliver up its dead; which spiritual death is hell; wherefore, death and hell must deliver up their dead, and hell must deliver up its captive spirits, and the grave must deliver up its captive bodies, and the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other; and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel." (2 Nephi 9:12).

The Economist makes a minor error in asserting that Jews hold Gehenna to some grave level of validity. This is wrong on two accounts. First, Jews are not concerned with the afterlife. Actions on this world that are dictated by what is thought to be eternal reward or punishment is discouraged. Second, the pervading eschatological concept, reinforced by Torah, Talmud, and Kabbalah, is simply HaOlam Haba (the World to Come).
Furthermore, the concept of Gehenna specifically deals with the "wicked." In a world where half of all peoples decree nonbelievers as "wicked," it is easy to mistake Gehenna for a Jewish Hell. Fortunately, this is not the case. Wickedness, according to Judaism, is more rigorously defined as pure, universal evil. It takes all of an individual's actions, weighs the good against the bad, and, if the bad dwarfs the good, the individual is declared evil.
According to this doctrine, even atheists would need to be pretty horrible individuals before qualifying as "wicked" according to Jews. So no, Gehenna is not Hell.

As an atheist who was raised as an evangelical Christian, I'm always amused by attempts of (theologically) liberal Christians to hold on to the concept of Heaven while disavowing the concept of Hell.

People claim that Hell is incompatible with a kind, peaceful God, but much of the Old Testament is incompatible with the idea of a kind, peaceful God. First you have Noah's flood, where God kills everyone on the planet, except for Noah's family. Then you have God nuking Sodom and Gomorrah. Then you have the plagues in Egypt where God kills the first-born son in every Egyptian family. Then you have the book of Joshua, where God repeatedly tells the Israelites to kill every single man, woman, child, and goat in the cities they invade. And you have lots more bloodshed in the name of God in the books of Kings and Chronicles.

Fast forward to the Book of Revelation at the end of the New Testament, and God goes back into Kill Everyone mode. This time though, He figures 40 days and 40 nights of rain was too easy, so instead He subjects humanity (with the exception of His Raptured followers) to seven years of every imaginable disaster.

Seriously, even if you're an atheist, if you like fantasy, horror, or disaster movies, you should read the Book of Revelation. It's like Clive Barker meets Michael Bay, and more creative than either in its horrors.

And at the end of all that, nonbelievers are tossed into the Lake of Fire (which is interpreted by Evangelicals to be Hell or some sort of improved Hell equivalent) to be tortured for eternity.

Not sure what you mean by liberal Christian, but as the article has stated a large majority of Christians don't believe in hell, and I would guess they also don't believe in a personal god (deism)
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I find that when Western Atheist talk about religion is only about the little they have experienced through TV, and not through travel, study and questioning.
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Like Blind faith in Religion, Blind faith in Western Atheism is just as bad and silly

Typical literalist take on religion. All the atheists of the day thinking they are geniuses because they have found out there is actually no physical heaven and hell they can go to and touch.

You get close to a pretty good definition with the quote from William Blake. As Dostoyevsky wrote, "hell is the inability to love". Think of people like Adam Lanza, the tortured existence that must have been his for so long that led him to commit such an act. That is hell - you don't need to go back and study the Greek texts to look for it. It's right in front of us, every day.

That would be an atheist's take though. There is nothing but this world. Atheists don't come out against love or in favor of human suffering, they just think they arise from this world not from fairy land.

In the huge scope of what religion represents, this is such a minor point to contend over it baffles me to see people waste so much time over it. God IS Love, the Devil is the opposite. This has been put into all kinds of poetic, metaphorical imagery by all of the major religions.. to listen to intelligent people go "but there's no way hell could exist at the earth's core!" is positively mind-numbing.

Jesus, Buddha, the Bhagavad Gita, they are all saying the same thing, but with different stories to illustrate a point. We're talking about thousands of years ago, that is what people did - tell stories.

For all the talk about Hell, references to it are almost non-existent in the 39 Canonical Books of the Hebrew Bible and are sparse in the New Testament. Only in the later Koran does a frightful image and concept get fully spelled out! Hell was a mostly Medieval Creation and declined rapidly after the Age of Discovery and the unending transformations which followed. The real Hell as worthy Theologians in ALL ages recognized and taught was a diabolical and bestial Human Mind.

I feel sorry for those who forgo a life of fun and excitement for a mistaken hope that they will live forever in happiness after death. I say live this life to its fullest because you will not get any more time.
Edit: grammar.

I've never understood how people talk about Hell in a jocular fashion. Even most religious people tell, and are amused by, jokes about Hell. But Hell is no laughing matter. If you don't believe in Hell, then it's a disgusting idea. If you do believe in Hell, then there cannot be anything more serious.

I think that many Europeans have forgotten that Christmas is the birthday of Lord Jesus Christ...
No wonder godless Europe is going bankrupt - in many ways. The facts speak for themselves. I pray the US does not follow.

You mean Christmas is a Christian high-jacking of a Pagan Holiday for the Winter Solstice. All evidence points to Christ (if he existed) being born in Spring. The whole "Christmas is Christ's birthday" crap is, well, crap.

The author seems to know more about Hell than the Bible. Wow, what moral authority!

Check out this opportunistic video showing a miracle of the sun from Medjugorje, Hercegovina, where apparitions of the Blessed Mother Mary are currently being reported:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlPHHl0AjZk

one goes to hell for not believing in (christian) god and for not living one's life according to christian values? Every person ever lived is in heaven or hell? Well, in that case i think i'd rather went to hell to do sex, drugs and rock n' roll with plato, cleopatra and jimi hendrix instead of spending an eternity with super-pious followers of the great dictator!

You are wrong mate, sex, drugs and alcohol will be available in heaven only; in hell you will be lucky if you got cigarette butts from heaven's ashtrays and cheap warm lemonade in plastic bottles. As for music, you will be lumbered with opera, and it won't be in stereo either; rock, soul and the likes will be available in heaven only.

Hell and all of its demons certainly still exist. In fact hell, its demons, and its many ways of torturing and punishing people are no longer relegated to the underworld and the hereafter, as hell has reared up adn become an active presence in the world today.

It's called government.

Enslaving, exploiting, torturing, imprisoning and denying people life's joys and freedoms. Governments in the "free" (sic) world are doing more of this to the people of the world than ever before in the entire history of the human race.